Two Killed in Firefighting Plane Crash
An air tanker flying for the U.S. Forest Service crashed Thursday while fighting a wildfire that has burned 26 homes and charred more than 20,000 acres of forest in the Sierra east of Sacramento.
The two people aboard were killed, but the bodies haven’t been recovered, said El Dorado County Undersheriff Jim Roth. Their identities were withheld until relatives could be notified. The aircraft, a four-engine DC-7, crashed about 12:30 p.m., near the Union Valley Reservoir in the El Dorado National Forest. The plane was owned by TBM Inc. of Visalia and was operating under contract for the federal government.
A witness who declined to give his name said the plane clipped treetops before it crashed. The crash started another fire, about two miles from the first blaze.
All tanker flights were halted for a time to assess flying conditions and because of the psychological impact of the crash on other tanker pilots, officials said.
This is the second crash of an air tanker this year in California. In June, the state’s chief fire pilot was killed in a crash in Calaveras County.
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